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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Been There, Done. . .Oh, Oh. . .

There are lists for everything these days. The top five beaches, the top ten World Heritage Sites, the most romantic cities, the list of places to see and the list of places not to see. They are tantalizing barometers for what we might be missing or how much we've checked off the bucket list. So when I saw a list of the 10 must-see places in New Zealand, well, I just had to check. You see we had an extensive visit to New Zealand and went all around both islands. So did we miss anything?

The list, if you'd like to look more closely is at Smart Travel.com and we visited most of them: Milford Sound, Auckland, Christchurch, Bay of Islands, Queenstown, Rotorua's Geothermal Valley, Franz Josef Glacier and Waitomo Gloworm Caves but apparently a couple slipped by us.

Waiheke Island is one we missed. It is in the Hauraki Gulf and is reached by a 30 minute boat ride from Auckland. It is known for its vineyards and wineries which could be why we passed it up. We say plenty of vineyards and wineries on the main islands that make up NZ.

White Island in the Bay of Plenty in the area near Tauranga and Rotorua is basically a volcano. It's Maori name is Te Puia o Whakaari which means "The Dramatic Volcano" named such because it is very active. The only way to see it is by helicopter (not for me) or scenic flight unless you have the time to take a boat there for scuba diving. Our World Cruise does stop a
t Tauranga and there is an excursion but by helicopter. I guess we'll pass again. There's always hope of seeing it from the ship as we arrive or leave the port.

All in all, there are a lot more than 10 best places to visit on Middle Earth and I think we did a pretty good job of seeing most of them. Still, I wouldn't mind another trip back just to be sure we didn't miss any more.